11. Tyler
CHAPTER ELEVEN
tyler
Somewhere between breakfast and bourbon, the storm settled in for the long haul.
So did Darcy.
We talked about her scholarship to Penn State and her freshman year roommate who would steal all of her socks. She told us about growing up outside Philadelphia and her summer abroad in London and how she’d turned a design degree into a freelance empire.
Conversations about work usually lasted three minutes before me or Mack changed the subject. Most people wanted the highlight reel. The stuff that sounded good over drinks.
With Darcy, it was different. She asked questions because she was curious, not because she was collecting details to be impressed by later.
When Mack explained chauffeur training, she listened. When I told her about RIT, she listened to that too. Then she nodded, stole another pancake and moved on when we were done, like the firefighter part wasn’t the most interesting thing about either of us.
I didn’t realize how rare that was until she did it.
I stare out the window as butter melts in a pot over the stove.
The storm’s gotten serious. Wind shoves snow sideways across the street, swallowing stoops and parked cars one drift at a time.
Darcy looks up from her spot on the floor near the couch. She’d started the day in the armchair. Somewhere after the second bourbon she’d relocated to the rug, stolen my hoodie, and settled in like she’d always been there.
“Should we be worried?”
“Relax.” I nod toward the front door. “Generators running. Besides, if it wasn’t and we lost power again, Mack would fistfight Eversource himself.”
Darcy snorts into her bourbon.
“That’s reassuring.”
Mack’s voice rings in from the foyer.
“Talking shit from a warm kitchen is brave.”
I grin.
“See? Already in fighting form.”
A second later, Mack shoulders through the door from the basement stairs with an armful of firewood, work boots still on and cheeks pink from the cold.
Darcy looks up before he’s even fully in the room.
I keep that information to myself.
Her glass stops halfway to her mouth. I give her a second to remember I’m still in the room. She gets there in about two, setting her cup down and clearing her throat as Mack drops the firewood beside the hearth and crouches to feed the fire.
Her attention follows him the whole way. She’s not nearly as subtle as she thinks she is, but then again, neither is he.
He’s spent most of the day pretending Darcy was no different than any other tenant.
Which would’ve been a more convincing strategy if he hadn’t been the first one at her door when the power went out.
Or if he’d quit looking at her like she’s both a bad idea and the only thing he wants to think about.
My brother keeps drawing the line and then walking right over it.
“This feels like a setup,” she half-whispers, interrupting my train of thought.
I like this.
The way she squirms when she realizes one of us caught her staring. The way she starts trying to put herself back together, smoothing over the evidence like we didn’t already see it happen.
What she doesn’t know is that watching her try to rein it in makes it considerably harder to do the same. Harder not to think about getting her between us and taking her apart until she stops trying to manage every reaction before it reaches her face.
I’ve been carrying that thought around since breakfast, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I pull myself back before that train of thought becomes a structural issue.
“Which part?” I ask as I pour the melted butter over a bowl of popcorn big enough to feed five.
She gestures vaguely around the room, bourbon balanced against her knee.
“All of it. Nobody warned me the apartment came with—”
“With what?” I probe.
“—never mind.”
She swallows.
Mack glances over his shoulder while he throws another log into the hearth.
“Please. Finish that thought.”
“I was trying to be polite.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
The comment catches me off guard. Not because my brother’s flirting.
Mack’s always had game. It’s the way Darcy keeps throwing elbows and he keeps throwing them right back.
Most women either melt under the attention or get out of the way.
Darcy digs in, asks follow-up questions, and then acts surprised when he gives them.
The thought makes me chuckle.
“Don’t encourage it.”
She narrows her eyes at me.
“But it was just getting good.”
Darcy opens her mouth, thinks better of it, and reaches for her bourbon instead.
Smart girl.
She’s outnumbered and Mack and I have had thirty years of practice being a pain in the ass together. At a certain point, self-preservation becomes the correct choice.
She tucks one knee underneath her, my old BU hoodie swallowing her hands, and I drop down next to her with the popcorn and the cards because I need something to do with my hands before I do something I won’t be able to walk back.
I’ve wanted her since the day she walked through the front door and looked around the upstairs apartment like it owed her something good and she was finally ready to collect.
What’s new is realizing how much I like having her here. Not just looking at her, but talking to her.
And then there’s Mack. We’ve been here before, the two of us noticing the same woman at the same time. Usually somebody makes a move and the other follows suit.
With Darcy, neither of us seems particularly interested in doing that. Instead we’ve spent the day pretending we’re not both looking for reasons to keep her downstairs.
Which is probably something we should both get a handle on. Just not today.
Across from us, Mack settles into the armchair nearest the fire. Darcy’s attention shifts to the deck of cards I’ve set on the coffee table, suspicion written all over her face.
“That…looks dangerous.”
I open the deck and start shuffling the cards.
“Only if you have something to hide.”
“What kind of game are we playing exactly?”
“Never have I ever. With cards.”
“Ty…”
Mack gives me less of a look and more of a warning.
“That’s your game?” Darcy says.
“More civilized this way.”
I shrug at Mack.
“I don’t know if I trust anything you describe as civilized.”
Mack takes a sip of bourbon.
“You shouldn’t.”
“Not helping.”
She scowls at him.
His mouth curves.
“Wasn’t trying to.”
I deal us each ten cards face down. Darcy picks hers up, glances through them once, then again. I can practically see the debate happening—play it safe or cause problems. A second later she slides one onto the table.
“Never have I ever hooked up with someone at work.”
“That’s your opener?” Mack raises a brow.
“We’re warming up.”
I toss a card into the middle of the table.
“Paramedic in training. Southie.”
Darcy huffs out a laugh.
I nod at Mack.
“Don’t act superior.”
Mack holds my gaze for one beat before sliding a card onto the table.
Darcy blinks.
“Mason?”
I catch my brother’s eye over her head.
Unbelievable.
Most people get Mack. Friends, coworkers, half the department. Mason only comes out when he’s trying to keep a little distance between himself and somebody else.
Or be an asshole.
Which would be a solid strategy if the person in question wasn’t currently sitting cross-legged on our living room floor in my sweatshirt, two bourbons in, getting snowed in and laughing at his jokes. That particular line crossed state borders sometime before lunch.
“You can call him Mack,” I tell her.
Mack looks at me.
“Tyler…”
“Don’t be a dick.”
I gesture toward Darcy.
His gaze shifts to her and stays there for a second before he lets the argument die without another word. Across from us, Darcy looks like she wants a follow-up and is physically restraining herself.
Good instinct.
She puts down her own card instead.
“Copy editor. First job out of college. We were both miserable.”
“Bleak,” I tell her.
She lifts a shoulder.
“Welcome to marketing.”
A few rounds later, she flips another card and immediately wrinkles her nose.
“Never have I ever lied to get out of a date.”
“Weak,” she announces before either of us can react.
Across from us, Mack drops a card onto the table without a word. Darcy catches the movement and turns to stare at him.
“That was fast.”
“Sometimes silence is kinder.”
“Oh, absolutely not. Tell her.”
Darcy leans forward, the blanket she pulled out of her duffle bag earlier sliding off one shoulder.
“Please do.”
I watch Mack look at her leaning toward him. Watch something move through his face that he gets under control about a second too late. Eight years on the same truck and a lifetime as his brother and I’ve never seen him work this hard at stillness.
Mack clears his throat.
“She brought her mother.”
Darcy’s eyes go wide.
“On a first date?!”
“...apparently, she liked brunch.”
Darcy completely loses it. One second she’s sitting cross-legged on the rug and the next she’s folded in half, bourbon abandoned on the coffee table while she laughs into the blanket.
I don’t do much better.
Mack rubs a hand across his jaw.
“I was ambushed.”
She laughs harder.
I watch him watch her do it and feel that familiar pull low in my chest. I know exactly what he’s looking at because I’ve spent most of the day looking at the same thing.
The way Darcy throws her whole body into a laugh when she’s caught off guard.
The way she stops trying to manage every reaction for a second and just lets herself have it.
I can’t stop wondering what she’d look like if she stopped holding herself together altogether. What she’d sound like. I want to feel her shallow breaths under my palms as I hold her down and watch Mack take her thoroughly, all that composure she works so hard to maintain gone.
I take a drink before that particular fantasy gets any further.
The cards go a few more rounds after that.
Darcy’s good at this. She gives away just enough to keep the game moving and somehow keeps the interesting parts tucked away until you forget they’re there. Then she’ll drop a detail that sends you right back to wondering what else she’s not saying.